


'Dean keeps the bullet'

by themegalosaurus



Series: SPN episode codas [13]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Episode Tag, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Episode: s11e17 Red Meat, Season/Series 11
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-31
Updated: 2016-03-31
Packaged: 2019-09-06 16:57:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16836730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themegalosaurus/pseuds/themegalosaurus
Summary: Coda to 11x17. What happened to that bullet.





	'Dean keeps the bullet'

**Author's Note:**

> It's harder to write fic for a perfect episode than for a flawed one, I think.

Dean keeps that bullet, like he said he was gonna, but he never gets around to giving it to Sam. For a long while it just sits in his pocket, jarring him every time his fingers brush against it back to the nauseous, dizzying moment when he stumbled into the cabin and saw Sam lying dead on the floor. He doesn’t need that kind of blow to the head on the regular; it puts him off his game. But he can’t throw the thing away. He tries to, once, gets as far as dangling it between his fingers over the trash. He can’t drop it. He can’t shake the feeling that if he did, whatever spell it was that brought Sam back would shatter and his brother would collapse, right then, would buckle at the knees and fall, stomach gaping, blossoming bloody onto the floor.

It’s not good in the pocket, though, somewhere that he can forget and be reminded of it with that horrible shuddering jerk. He needs to put it somewhere where it’ll stay, where it’s always there and he can get used to it, deal with it, understand that Sam’s here and alive.

In the end, he drills a hole through it and hangs it around his neck on a length of leather. It’s better that way, a solid weight, the right kind of reminder.

In a few months time, they’ll be on another hunt and Sam will notice the cord. His eyes will widen and his cheeks will flush, but he won’t say anything, and Dean will think with a guilty shiver about the amulet he did drop in the trashcan a long way back, will think about the spell that was severed by that act. He’ll look at the tight line of tension in Sam’s shoulders; and he’ll tug the bullet out from under his collar, make a face that is half-apology and half-embarrassment, and say “it’s from -”

Sam will pat an absent hand over his own belly, where the scar sprawls pink and shiny under his shirt. He’ll nod. He’ll still be a little drawn, Sam, these months down the line; still get tired a little easier, still look thinner around the lips, still refuse to discuss in any real detail the staggering feat of his self-rescue. But he’ll reach for the bullet as Dean holds it in the light; will clasp his fingers around it just for a moment; and when he lets go and it drops back down against Dean’s chest, Dean will feel his brother’s living heat against his skin.


End file.
